Todd M. Siebert: President Obama: Dems ‘monkeyed around’ with election results in the past

Thursday, 27 October 2016

President Obama: Dems ‘monkeyed around’ with election results in the past

Way back in 2008, before it was cool to make fun of Donald Trump’s worries about election fraud, President Barack Obama admitted that vote-rigging is a pretty common deal.

Speaking to an Ohio crowd on the campaign trail, then Senator Obama said was asked how voters could be sure the 2008 election wouldn’t be stolen.

His answer: “Well, it helps on Ohio that we’ve got Democrats in charge of the machines. But look, I come from Chicago— so I want to be honest, it’s not just Republicans who have monkeyed around with elections in the past. Sometimes Democrats have to.

Obama continued: “Whenever people are in power, they have this tendency to try to tilt things in their direction.”

For that reason, Obama said at the time, the Justice Department should have a division dedicated to investigating voter fraud. In addition, he said electronic voting machines should have paper backups.

Those remarks, of course, are a far cry from what Obama is saying today.

“I’ve never seen in my lifetime or in modern political history any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections and the election process before votes have even taken place,” he proclaimed recently.

The president has also said that “no serious person” could believe that U.S. elections might be rigged.

Of course, who could blame him for the total reversal? After all: “Whenever people are in power, they have this tendency to try to tilt things in their direction.”